Based in Rhode Island, Ian Chinich is a customer service agent with a health care system provider. An avid reader with a passion for history, Ian Chinich enjoys the classic works of Leo Tolstoy, such as War and Peace, and Resurrection.

1. Resurrection - A
Tolstoy Novel that
Provides a Human
Rights Blueprint
Ian Chinich

2. Introduction
• Based in Rhode Island, Ian Chinich is a customer service agent with a health care
system provider. An avid reader with a passion for history, Ian Chinich enjoys the
classic works of Leo Tolstoy, such as War and Peace, and Resurrection.
Relatively unknown to contemporary readers, Resurrection was an international
success at the time of its publication, outselling both Anna Karenina and War
and Peace. The novel came at a time in Tolstoy’s life when he had transcended
the literary realm and become akin to a prophet, with pilgrims flocking to his
home in the same way as one might visit a shrine.
The novel’s plot centers around a corrupt nobleman, who finds himself
unexpectedly tasked with sitting on the jury in which a young woman, whom he
had previously seduced and abandoned, is being tried for murder. More
important in many ways than the narrative construct is how Tolstoy interweaves
innovative concepts for improving society, including prison, land, and religious
reform.
With Resurrection, Tolstoy was emulating the approach of his longtime literary
hero, the French philosopher Rousseau, who had also sandwiched philosophical
treatises within the form of the novel. The legacy of this approach is one that
has transcended fiction and influenced human rights leaders of the 20th century
as diverse as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.